Menteng is no longer a conservation area. This is not a statement from legal point of view, of course, but from the reality in the field. The irony is exactly that legally it is. The conservationist perspective has so long prevented it from being looked at its real, basic problem: How to maintain a comfortable living in the city’s centre. What is happening there is first of all not a destruction of a shared colonial heritage, but simply a destruction of a good quality residential neighbourhood. It is an epitome of what is happening to the whole Jakarta, as it is being turned into a gigantc machine to earn a living, with little left for living itself. Continue reading →